The Spike Jonze-directed Arcade Fire music video opens, innocently enough, with a group of friends hitting the suburban streets. YouTube

November 23, 2010

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The video: When it was announced last April that popular indie-rock band Arcade Fire and Oscar-nominated director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Where the Wild Things Are) would be working together on a short film, critics heralded the collaboration as a "dream team." That project has now been released — a haunting, "stirring" video for the title track off the band's recent album, The Suburbs.The reaction: The video "was worth the wait," says James Montgomery at MTV News. It offers a political commentary on "rapidly disappearing civil liberties and the very real issue of post-traumatic stress disorder," among other things. It's "weird" and "moving," says Annalee Newitz at io9. "I've never seen anyone successfully create a wistful apocalyptic tone the way Jonze does here." While "it's very cool to see Jonze return to the gritty, suburban feel of his early skateboard tapes and music videos, says Brett Warner at Ology, I'm only in "like", not "love" with this video. Watch the clip for yourself: